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I debated about putting this here or in the 'Unmanned Probe' forum, but that seems mostly to deal with real, current missions, and this topic has to do directly with Mars Direct and eventual manned missions, so here goes...
Has anyone ever done a cost estimate on an unmanned mission to send a small propellant generation system (like Zubrin developed previously) to land on Mars to prove its viability? How cheaply could this really be done?
It could even be combined with a sample-return mission, so that if the propellant creation works, we even get more bang for the buck.
Think this could be done on a lander about the size of Viking? Would an RTG work for the mission's power requirements?
If it's only a few hundred million, what are the odds we could find funding? Possible ideas:
Getting the Mars Society, Planetary Society, et. al. to join together to find funding
Private investors (get Bill Gates to do some good with his bankroll)
Do the hard-sell with NASA and convince them to use this mission as part of their (near-term) Mars exploration program, now that Bush put manned Mars missions on the table again (down the road).
Thoughts?
A couple items:
First, I believe the doubled travel time refers to getting the astronauts back (the trip is doubled due to the return trip).
For the timeline, from the reports I've been reading, they are talking about Luna by 2013 and (from what I've read) a manned Mars FLY-BY!!! around 2020, the excuse given is that it is cheaper and easier than getting them down to the surface and back. Personally, I suspect (and pray) that this was erroneous info.
And as far as the cuts, I've read that any cuts/re-org they will be looking at are pretty-much limited to the manned program (thankfully).
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